


through every forest, above the trees

by Timjan



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Blow Jobs, Come Shot, Crooked era, Face Slapping, First Time, Friends With Benefits, Hand Jobs, Humiliation, Internalized Biphobia, Kink Meme, Light Bondage, M/M, Non-Monogamy, Porn With Plot, Prompt Fill, Rape Fantasy, Rape Roleplay, Safe Sane and Consensual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:27:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timjan/pseuds/Timjan
Summary: “How about a… a rape fantasy?” Jon asks, trying to keep his voice even but unable to completely prevent the tiniest of cracks at the end.Tommy’s eyes snap up to meet his, and for a long moment they just look at each other.“Which direction?” Tommy asks at last, looking away for a fraction of a second and then back.“You, aah… you raping me.”





	through every forest, above the trees

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](https://podsavethekink.dreamwidth.org/659.html?thread=156307#cmt156307) prompt at the kink meme, which reads:
> 
> "tommy/favs - consensual noncon
> 
> hey....... 
> 
> favs and tommy roleplaying something where favs can play the helpless victim and tommy can take what he wants from him. particularly with favs playing it up and begging tommy not to (with safe/sane/consensual kink obviously :P )"
> 
> Title from Nine Inch Nails' _Closer_.
> 
> Please don't share this outside fandom spaces.

There are so many things that Jon loves about Emily. There are all the everyday things – her humor, her passion, the way her eyes light up when they talk about starting a family – but there are… other things too. Like how she’ll pull a blindfold over his eyes, tie him up with knots she learned from Tommy, and tell him how good he’s being as she has her way with him. It’s super hot, every time, and Jon’s so happy and thankful that this can be a part of their relationship without it being a big deal. Lately, however, Jon’s mind has been overrun by a whole knew category of sexual fantasies, nothing like anything he’s even dreamed of enjoying before. (If he were to examine it the whole thing would probably prove to have something to do with how helpless he feels about Trump and America and the world, but he doesn’t examine it.) The scenarios run the gamut from cartoonish to melodramatic to frankly disturbingly realistic: Jon is tied up and teased with a feather by a dark-haired woman who may or may not be an actual vampire; Jon has a knife to his throat and a cock in his ass; Jon is hit in the face and forced to eat his own come… What all of them have in common is that Jon finds himself earnestly begging for it to stop, and it doesn’t stop. And there’s the rub. He and Emily haven’t even bothered to come up with a safe word, because in all the games they’ve been playing, no still means no. And if Jon knows his wife as well as he thinks he does, she won’t be up for this kind of play, which is fine. Everybody has their limits. Still, it can’t hurt to ask, right? (He’s not in the prediction business any more.)

He brings it towards the end of a lazy Saturday brunch.

“Ems, honey, how do you feel about maybe… playing around with, uh, lack of consent? In the bedroom?”

The words tumble out of Jon’s mouth too quickly, leaving him breathless. Compared to the images in Jon’s head they are laughably flat and dry, and yet they hang heavily above the breakfast table until Emily catches his eyes and smiles.

“So _that’s_ why you’ve been on edge all morning,” she says good-naturedly, as she reaches down to scratch Leo behind the ears. “Phew. I was worried this was about that Taylor Swift tweet I posted last night…”

They get sidetracked there, and when they get back on track Jon finds out that he’d been right in his assessment of his wife’s interest in rape play. Emily, sweetest Emily, _of course_ doesn’t judge him for it – he hadn’t even realized he’d been worried about that until he’s flooded with relief – but she’s also very firm that she has no interest whatsoever in participating in anything like that. They come up with some other new things to try, though, and for almost a week various members of the Crooked Media team catch Jon staring out into the middle distance, his mouth hanging open and his fingers on his lips. Thank god they can’t see what he’s thinking about. And thank god Elijah doesn’t get it on camera.

\---

In the end, it’s Emily that comes up with the solution.

As the weeks go by, and they get into trying all those interesting new ideas they had that morning over brunch – most of which turn out to be great – Jon still keeps fantasizing about being taken by force, and he keeps talking to Emily about it. He even tells her about some of the fantasies in detail; the funny ones to make her laugh and the elaborate but non-violent ones to make her hot and give her ideas to try out on him for real. It’s when he’s talking in more vague terms about a more extreme fantasy, however, that she gives the suggestion that sets a whole new and extremely unexpected chain of events into motion.

“Maybe you could ask someone else to do it?”

Oh.

They’ve talked about this before – about maybe having an open relationship in the future, maybe bringing someone else into the bedroom with them or hooking up separately if they end up separated for more than a few weeks. It’s only been loose talk, though, both of them pretty monogamous by nature and happy with their current arrangement. Jon still is, really, and in any case he can only imagine doing this with someone he really, really trusts. Emily has kept talking while Jon’s been distracted, and when he opens his mouth to protest he hears her say,

“I don’t think I’d be jealous if it was Tommy.”

If it was Tommy.

_Tommy._

Whoa.

\---

The Red Sox have just won, and Jon and Tommy are sprawled out on Tommy and Hanna’s huge sofa, finishing up their beers and chatting about the game and next week’s Monday pod. Emily, Hanna, Lovett and the dogs are out on their own adventures. Jon’s pretty sure that Ems engineered this turn of events specifically to give him a chance to talk to Tommy alone. It’d be rude not to take advantage of the opportunity. So in a lull in the conversation, Jon takes a deep breath and says,

“So, Tommy. I have something really weird that I want to ask you. It’d be great if you didn’t freak out.”

Tommy raises his eyebrows, turning his full attention onto Jon. Tommy’s full attention is always a lot, especially when it comes at you from scattered to fully focused like a snap of your fingers, but the current circumstances make it worse than usual. Jon clears his throat and looks away, trying to drag out the strategy he’d thought up for this talk from the sudden blur of his brain. Tommy’s not entirely straight – Jon knows this just like Tommy already knows that Em didn’t ask him to teach her to make sailor’s knots from a sudden onset interest in the boating life. So those are the givens. Jon was going to build on that to lay out a water tight case for why he and his best friend should take their relationship in a whole new and frankly more than a little absurd – not to mention potentially worrisome – direction, but his blood is rushing in his ears and he can’t remember anything he’d planned to say. So strategy is out, tactics are in. The only thing he can remember from his talks with Emily is the cryptic comment ‘Come at it from the direction of roleplaying.’

“So, er, Emily tells me you like… roleplaying,” he says.

Wow, that was a truly weird fucking opening. Tommy just hums noncommittally, and Jon can’t bring himself to look at him. He wants to forget about the whole thing, go back to just being two bros chatting companionably over a couple of beers. But he’s in it now, and there’s no direction to go but forward.

“And I, uh,” Jon goes on. “Well, I… How does that work, for you?”

So, yes, that’s stalling, but it’s also a relevant question.

“It works fine, Jonathan,” Tommy says, slowly. He never calls Jon ‘Jonathan.’ “What are you really asking?”

Fuck.

Jon throws Tommy a glance, even as he’d rather hide his face in one of the sofa’s cushions. Tommy’s eyebrows have risen even further up towards his hairline and Jon can see his mind working in the movements of his eyes, darting around, assessing the situation.

“No, I mean, I’m just curious about how you go about it, how you like, decide what to do and make it happen?”

By now Tommy has stopped looking around the room and is instead looking straight at Jon. Jon has a sudden impulse to laugh. He doesn’t.

“What are you fishing for, Favreau?” Tommy asks in that bland tone of voice that he used to use with reporters, back in the day. There’s a weird edge to it now, though.

When Jon doesn’t answer – doesn’t know what to answer, doesn’t know how to handle having that voice turned on him – something seems to shift in Tommy; his eyes soften, his shoulders relax.

“Look, Jon, I’m not gonna freak out. Is… is this about you having some sort of fantasy that Em can’t help you with?”

It’s phrased like a question, but there’s a finality to how Tommy says it that tells Jon that he’s sure he has figured it out, solved Jon like a riddle. Not a very complicated riddle, for sure – it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this was going. What’s actually surprising is how _unsurprised_ Tommy seems about the whole thing.

“Yeah,” Jon says, because what else is there to say?

Tommy takes a deep breath.

“Okay, then,” he says. “Well, uh, usually Hanna has the idea and I, what was it you said, ‘make it happen’?”

“Make it happen how?”

“Well, you know, figuring out logistics and buying stuff and setting things up,” Tommy says with a shrug. “I like taking a vague idea and turning it into something real. Well, almost real, I guess. It’s a bit like running point, actually.”

“Organizing made sexy,” Jon teases.

Tommy grins at him, and things feel almost normal again. Jon wants to ask what kinds of fantasies they’re talking about here, but he’s already crossed more than a few lines and this isn’t just Tommy’s privacy he’s invading, it is Hanna’s too.

“So it’s just Hanna’s fantasies, not yours?” he asks instead.

“Yeah, sure. I mean, I add things I like when I plan things out. And it’s not really about what the fantasy’s ‘about’ for me, you know?” Tommy says, making air quotes around the second ‘about’.

Jon doesn’t really get that, but he still nods.

“I can usually find some angle that helps me get off on whatever the fantasy is, though,” Tommy adds, glancing down as a little inwards smile spreads over his lips. It makes him look almost coquettish.

“How about a… a rape fantasy?” Jon asks, trying to keep his voice even but unable to completely prevent the tiniest of cracks at the end.

Tommy’s eyes snap up to meet his, and for a long moment they just look at each other.

“Which direction?” Tommy asks at last, looking away for a fraction of a second and then back.

“You, aah… you raping me.” No point trying to hide the quiver in his voice this time.

Tommy sucks in a breath, lets it out with a ‘huh.’ Then he puts his hands behind his head and leans back on the sofa, shutting his eyes. He sits like that for almost a minute, a faint blush slowly spreading over his features. Jon can’t look away.

Suddenly Tommy sits up straight again, turns back to Jon.

“Yeah, I could work with that,” comes the verdict.

“Yeah?” Jon feels himself perk up like an eager dog.

“Yeah. I’ll have to talk to Hanna first, though, you know…”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. But fuck, dude, wow!”

Jon’s grinning like a fool, and Tommy’s smile quickly widens to match. Jon shoves at him, playful, and Tommy snatches at his wrists, pinning them down to the sofa. Suddenly they’re both breathing hard, the air changed between them. Tommy carefully lets him go, but the implication of that touch still hovers between them like a promise.

\---

After almost a week of weird waiting – during which Jon tries not to get his hopes up, avoids Tommy as much as possible, catches himself smiling at the oddest times and is the recipient of several weird glances from Lovett – Hanna gives the all clear. Jon doesn’t even want to begin to imagine what the conversation between her and Tommy had been like. He likes Hanna a lot, but he knows that she already has some ambivalent feelings about how much time Tommy spends with Jon and Lovett, and this really has to complicate those feelings further. Still, Jon’s so pumped for this strange thing to happen that he hardly cares.

The first thing that happens, though, is a bunch of preparations. Jon has never spent this much time planning and negotiating a scene before. It's over a bottle of Winc wine on Jon’s porch that Tommy suggests that,

“Maybe we should have, like, a trial run. You know, figure out what we like, what we don’t like…”

“Actually, let’s maybe not?” Jon cuts in, thankful that his blushes are less apparent from the outside than Tommy’s are. “I sort of want when we do it for real to actually be my first time with a guy.”

“Holy shit, Jon,” Tommy breathes back, one of those very blushes spreading across his face in record time.

Jon wants to say that Tommy can do whatever he wants to him, that he trusts Tommy to keep things safe and sane, but he knows that won’t fly. And so they get into it: boundaries, hard nos, safe words, things they know they’re into, things they’re open to trying, how they’re gonna talk to each other during the scene, yadda yadda. With Emily, things have always been simple: she likes tying him up, he likes to be tied up. They went from there and experimented to see what they liked. Now Jon is jumping right into the deep end with a completely new partner (in this, if in nothing else), which necessarily brings in some complications. Then again, Tommy lives and breathes complicated, and he frankly seems to be getting off on the planning already, which, figures. For Jon it’s mostly awkward, occasionally hot, and generally surprisingly boring. (There’s some shame, too, but Jon is a mostly-lapsed Catholic, so he has learned to work through shame before, chiefly by ignoring it.) And somehow, for all their talking, Tommy still manages to keep most details of how he actually is planning to ‘make it happen’ secret.

\---

The last night before the date they set for show time, Tommy nudges Jon just as they’re about to walk out of Crooked HQ, the last ones to leave for the night. When Jon turns around, there’s a look on his friend’s face that he hasn’t seen for years, not since Tommy forced out every last vestige of his natural shyness (just like he’d once forced himself to stop stuttering, back before Jon knew him). He still blushes all the time, of course, but this is different, way past embarrassed and well on its way to bashful. Even through all the weird conversations they’ve been having lately he hasn’t looked even remotely like this.

“What is it, Tom?” Jon asks, prompting.

Tommy swallows.

“Jon, would you let me kiss you?” he asks, and to his credit his voice doesn’t even waver. “Now, I mean. I know you want to… go in blind or whatever, but it just feels too weird to me to ‘do stuff’ with someone without having kissed them first.”

The hairs on Jon’s arms stand up.

“Such a gentleman,” he tries to joke, but it doesn’t quite land.

Tommy doesn’t answer, just raises a barely visible eyebrow in a silent repeat of his question.

Jon’s not sure that their workplace is the best place to do this, but he also definitely isn’t about to invite Tommy home for a make out session. So he nods, and now it’s his turn to swallow as Tommy steps closer.

Once, very early in his acquaintance with Lovett – before he’d gotten a good grasp of Lovett’s boundaries, or just in general what kinds of questions you can ask gay people without it being awkward – Jon had asked him what kissing men was like. ‘I imagine it’s a lot like kissing women, but with a higher risk of beard burn,’ Lovett had replied, flippant. (In hindsight, Jon’s surprised that Lo had even humored him with any answer at all.)

There’s no risk of beard burn with Tommy, but this is still _very_ different from the kisses that Jon has shared with women throughout his life. Not the soft lips or the careful way Tommy lets just the tip of his tongue slip into Jon's mouth, but the way Jon has to tilt his head up instead of down, the smell of male hygiene products mingled with male sweat, the way they stand a little apart, even as Tommy rests a large hand on the small of Jon’s back. The way it’s _Tommy_. Jon’s not _into it_ -into it, but he’s not _not_ either. And Tommy’s a pretty good kisser, really, even as Jon can tell he’s holding back. Just when Jon decides to step in closer, Tommy breaks the kiss, looking away from Jon.

“Okay, so that was that,” he says. “Um, thanks.”

“You’re a good kisser,” Jon says, because he feels like he has to say something and ‘you’re welcome’ doesn’t quite cut it.

Tommy only replies with an awkward laugh, before visibly collecting himself and picking up his messenger bag.

“See you tomorrow! Wear something you’re not too careful with,” he says by way of goodbye.

And _fuck_ if that isn’t already embarrassingly hot.

\---

The next day Jon, on Tommy’s instructions, finds himself in a gay bar over in fucking Inglewood. Getting here was a hassle, but Jon appreciates the precaution against running into someone they know. He’s sitting at the bar and has already turned down three guys – ‘Sorry, I’m waiting for someone’ – when he feels the back of his neck prickle. He didn’t know that actually happens. He casts a furtive look over his shoulder, and sure enough, there Tommy is, seated alone in a dark corner, staring right at Jon, his left leg jiggling against the floor. When he catches Jon looking he leans forward, arms on his thighs, and honest to good _licks his lips_. What the hell. The way he does it is not even hot, just… unnerving. Has he been watching fucking _Silence of the Lambs_ to prep for this?

Jon has no idea when Tommy showed up, or how long he’s been looking at him. Jon turns back towards the bar, looks down into his drink. He doesn’t know what Tommy has planned, but it seems safest to just wait things out. And soon enough Jon feels a presence at his elbow, and then a hand on the small of his back. That sets off a sense memory of the kiss they shared less than twelve hours ago, and he shudders. With Jon seated on a barstool Tommy has a couple more inches on Jon than he usually does when Jon looks up at him. His eyes are unreadable. Jon smiles at him weakly and the sides of Tommy’s mouth twitch up. It’s not exactly a smile.

“Let me buy you a drink,” Tommy says.

“I already have a drink,” Jon replies, tilting his glass. He’s been nursing this whiskey sour for half an hour, now, and he’s not so sure that it’d be a great idea for him to get another. He should be sober for this.

Tommy must have come to a similar realization, because when Jon’s next drink arrives it’s a Diet Coke.

 _Very funny, Tommy_ , Jon thinks, glancing up at Tommy again. Tommy quirks a barely visible eyebrow, daring him to say something. Jon doesn’t, because that wasn’t really a big enough deal to break the play for, but still. _Hilarious._

“Thanks,” he says, instead.

Tommy has turned his back to the bar, leaning against it on his elbows. He looks… really good, actually. Jon doesn’t usually think much about how his friends look, but now he takes in Tommy’s tight black t-shirt, the silver chain around his neck, his worn jeans. He’s done something different with his hair, making it… poofier? He returns Jon’s look with an obvious once-over, taking in Jon’s grey Henley, the tight black jeans that Lovett always tells Jon he should wear more often.

“This your idea of dressing up for a tumble on the wild side?” Tommy mocks.

Jon doesn’t know what to reply. In real life he’d never give someone who talked to him like that the time of day (unless he was carrying a clip board, representing a candidate), so he doesn’t have any feel for what he can say to keep the play running smoothly. He settles on,

“It can’t be that bad, I still managed to catch your attention.”

“Pathetic,” Tommy replies, which is mean but not really unfair. “If that’s all the moves you’ve got I can tell you right now that your only chance of getting laid tonight is to go home with me.”

At that, the bartender, who’s apparently standing close enough to overhear, throws them a worried look. Tommy replies by flashing him a dazzling grin and throwing his arm around Jon in a half hug. Jon leans into the touch and smiles at the bartender too, trying to convey without words that everything is fine, because right now he can’t think of anything more mortifying than having to convey that message _with_ words. Apparently he succeeds, because the bartender just rolls his eyes at them and goes back to wiping at the glass in his hands. Jon lets himself feel embarrassed for a moment, then he shrugs. That guy has definitely seen worse before.

\---

As they finish their drinks – Tommy’s drinking a plain La Croix – they make conversation that mostly consists of Tommy mocking anything and everything that Jon says, while touching him in more and more intimate ways. Nothing improper, but Jon feels goose bumps rising in the wake of Tommy’s fingers travelling over his sides, up to his neck. The contrast to the stream of rudeness coming out of Tommy’s mouth is jarring.

At one point during the planning stage, Tommy had asked Jon if he could be mean to him.

“A mean rapist! Inconceivable!” Jon had replied, throwing up his arms.

Tommy had glared at him.

“Jeez, dude, just checking,” he had shot back, kicking at Jon’s shins like he does when Jon criticizes one of his suggested questions for an interview or something.

“Of course you can be mean to me, Tommy,” Jon had added. “I’d say that kind of comes with the territory.”

But now that the promised meanness is actually turned on him, Jon doesn’t quite know how to handle it. His ingrained response to Tommy acting snippy is to laugh it off, because that usually makes Tommy catch himself and loosen up, but now that’s not the goal. Letting Tommy just go on is a lot like watching him pick a fight on Twitter and forcing himself to stay out of his DMs, to, let Tommy blow off steam in whatever way he chooses. Except Tommy’s not just blowing off steam, now. It’s clear that he’s getting off on bullying Jon, and that fact knocks Jon off kilter in a way that surprises – and excites – him.

“Drink up,” Tommy says suddenly, in the commanding tone that Jon knows he usually tries to avoid. “We’re leaving.”

Tommy leads the way out the bar, off in what must be the direction of the hotel they’ve booked for the night, walking two steps ahead of Jon for several blocks. Then he slows down enough for Jon to catch up. When he does he reaches behind him to squeezes Jon’s ass. Jon feels himself tense up, and glances around. It’s dark and warm and he can hear people laughing and singing from some ways off, but they’re alone. Tommy laughs at him.

“Brave enough to drag your ass to a gay bar, but not brave enough to have it grabbed in public, eh? How does it feel to be such a goddamn cliché, straight boy?” Tommy’s tone is light, mocking, but there’s an edge of bitterness to it that most people probably wouldn’t be able to hear.

When Jon glances over at Tommy he sees that his eyes are narrowed, his nose scrunched up the tiniest bit, his mouth a tense line. It’s a good show of disgust, only it’s not for show, because Tommy’s pointedly looking _away_ from Jon, not at him. Jon puts his hand on Tommy’s arm then, and they stop to face each other.

“Hey Tom,” he says, breaking the spell for a moment – they’ve agreed that using names means breaking character. “Is this… you working through some shit of your own here?”

Tommy flushes, looking down into Jon’s eyes. They’re standing very close to each other, as close as when they kissed yesterday. For a second Jon thinks Tommy’s going to kiss him again, right out here in the open night air, but then he just shrugs.

“Hey, Jon, don’t worry about it,” he says with a rueful smile. “Sure, I have some… points of reference, I guess, but I’m extrapolating pretty wildly from them. Some people are just shitty.”

Some people are just shitty. True enough. Still, Jon makes a mental note to tell Lovett to stop referring to Tommy as ‘straight’.

\---

They walk the rest of the way to the hotel in silence, keeping the brisk pace that Tommy set for them. When they get to the hotel’s entrance, Tommy reaches for Jon’s wrist and yanks him closer so that he almost crashes into Tommy’s solid chest. When Jon finds his balance, Tommy lifts a finger to his face, strokes his cheek in a disconcertingly tender way, before twisting the finger around so his nail scratches along Jon’s jaw line.

“Not chickening out yet, straight boy?” Tommy asks, his voice deceptively soft through his smirk.

Jon clears his throat.

“No, I…”

“Come on then,” Tommy cuts him off.

Once again Jon finds himself trailing behind Tommy, struggling to keep up, and soon Tommy is fishing out a key card, sliding it into the door to room 108. Once inside, Jon looks around, curious. The room is small, and very impersonal. Touring means that Jon has spent a lot of time in hotel rooms lately, but none of them has been as nondescript as this; the walls are white, the bed is white, the curtains are white. The blinds are drawn. The only thing adding even a hint of character is a halfway decent painting of a flowering meadow hung above the bed. Jon spends a moment absentmindedly identifying lupines and coneflowers, and then his gaze moves away to the nightstand – white – and his breath hitches. There’s lube and condoms standing on it. Jon and Tommy have agreed that nothing like that will be happening tonight – Jon would have been up for it, but Tommy had very firmly told him no – so this must just be scene setting, lending realism to Tommy brining someone up for an anonymous hook-up. Tommy is nothing but not thorough. Jon gets more proof of that as Tommy kicks off his shoes, revealing plain grey, boring socks. Tommy must have figured that the creep he’s playing wouldn’t wear funny socks, and so he doesn’t.

Jon takes off his own shoes, feeling Tommy’s eyes on him, and when he looks up Tommy has walked over to the bed and is openly staring at him, standing perfectly still. At any given time, Tommy’s a bundle of restless, nervous energy, but give him a task to complete and his body stills as he turns all that energy into getting that task done. Jon has seen him like he is now – purposeful, focused, intent – before, but it has never filled him with this kind of almost _unbearable_ anticipation. It’s like a high, and the scene hasn’t even really started yet. Jon has no idea when this is going to take a turn to the putatively non-consensual, and the not-knowing adds even more to the anticipation, enough that he finds himself making a noise that can only be described as a _whimper_. And sure, he’s been prepared for Tommy hearing his sex noises, but this is just absurd. They’ve hardly even touched!

And Tommy, who Jon is sure would have politely ignored that utterly embarrassing noise under almost any other imaginable circumstances, responds by laughing a raw, open laugh.

“Jeez, try to be a little less desperate for it.”

He laughs even harder as he watches Jon flush what must be a shade of red to rival even Tommy’s own at its most crimson.

“Come here, then.”

Jon goes, and when he comes within reach, Tommy pushes him down on the bed without warning. It’s hot, but Jon has a part to play, here.

“What the fu- what’s wrong with you, man?” he sputters, sitting up on the edge of the bed.

Tommy smirks down at him.

“‘What’s wrong with you, _man_?’” he echoes. “Why, what’s the problem, _dude_? Should have stuck to girls if you wanted me to be all ladylike and gentle, _bro_.”

This is more than a little rich coming from the guy infamous for saying ‘dude’ on Fox News, but Tommy somehow manages to make the words sound alien in his mouth, spit out with utter disdain. He really is unnervingly good at this. For an absurd second Jon wants to write a speech for him and watch him deliver it perfectly. Next, he wonders briefly what the hell Tommy and Hanna might have been getting up to with this kind of acting chops.

“Cat got your tongue, _homeboy_?” Tommy asks, waking Jon from his weird reveries.

And that’s one line too far for Jon. He can’t help snickering, and soon Tommy is cracking up too, despite himself. Or maybe not despite himself? Maybe he made a calculated decision to break character as a way to check in, because next he asks,

“Everything fine, this far?”

“Yeah, _bro_ ,” Jon shoots back.

Tommy’s eyes crinkle in delight at that, and then Jon gets to watch his face transform back into the cold, hard smirk it’d been wearing before, one eyebrow mockingly quirked. The change is… well, it’s unnerving, is what it is. That’s the word that keeps popping up in Jon’s head as he watches Tommy’s performance. But unnerving is not bad, under the circumstances. It sets Jon on edge in a very _interesting_ way.

“Well, enough joking around,” Tommy says, voice grim. “I see you have no initiative of your own whatsoever, so I’ll just have to put you to use myself.”

In one swift movement Tommy sits down, his thighs enveloping Jon’s as he pushes him back on the bed, holds him there with one hand as the other snakes down between them. His palm strokes down over the front of Jon’s jeans, and then he cups Jon’s balls through the fabric, the tips of his fingers pushing towards Jon’s asshole. They don’t quite reach it, the denim of Jon’s jeans stretched out too taut. Jon’s starting to really feel just how tight those jeans are.

“When I went out tonight,” Tommy says, conversationally, “I meant to pick up some pretty twink and have him bouncing on my dick in no time. But somehow I got stuck with you, who’d need like an hour of preparation for me not to split you in half – not that that isn’t an appealing idea in itself…”

Jon’s breath hitches again, as Tommy punctuates the line with a low, raw chuckle. Tommy’s really a little _too_ good at this. This talent is not coming out in their ad reads, that’s for sure. He catches Tommy’s gaze and Tommy lifts his eyebrows in a question, half in character, half out. Jon hesitates, then decides to go along with it. This is what he wants, and his heart fluttering frantically in his chest is part of the appeal, really, even as it makes a part of him want to break the whole thing off. His half-hard dick in his too tight pants for sure wants otherwise.

Message apparently received, Tommy goes on,

“Anyway, I guess I’m just gonna have to have you suck me off, which you’ll probably suck at too, no pun intended. Your mouth sure looks like it was made for it, though.”

And Jon knows that that’s, like, a trope, something people say in porn, something Tommy might have picked up just because it sounds like something his character would say. But no, there’s something there in Tommy’s voice, something almost wistful, that makes Jon think that there’s more to it. Is this something Tommy has been thinking about him? _Jesus._

“You’re not a little presumptuous,” he says, to cover up whatever that swoop in his chest he just felt was.

“I’m really not,” Tommy says, his voice hardened from mocking to frankly _dangerous_.

He steps off Jon, who sits back up as soon as Tommy’s hand leaves his chest, and, once standing, starts to unbuckle his belt.

“This is going to happen whether you like it or not, straight boy,” he says. “It’s time someone taught you that you can’t just come running to gay bars whenever your pathetic little straight life starts to feel suffocating and just take what you want without giving anything back.”

“Wow, you really are an asshole,” Jon spits out, putting the real anger he feels towards the people who have treated Tommy anything even remotely like this behind the words.

And Tommy slaps him, right across the face.

\---

Jon touches his own hand to his cheek. Tommy didn’t hit him hard, but he did it entirely without warning. Which they’d agreed could happen – Tommy can hit him unprovoked, but not hard enough to leave marks. Jon can fight back – ‘we both know I’ll win anyway’ Tommy had said, cocky, and Jon had fought him and lost then and there, inadvertently proving Tommy's point. It hadn’t been sexy then, but thinking back Jon feels his dick start to really push against his fly, fully hard even as his cheek still smarts under his hand.

The sound of the slap breaking through the quiet of the hotel room worked like a clapperboard, setting the scene off for real. Jon wants more, but his character… his character had been torn before, but now, Jon decides, he wants _out_. Jon pushes up off the bed, and before Tommy has time to react he has shouldered past him, making his way towards the door. He has his hand half raised to the handle when he feels Tommy’s big hand clasp around his upper arm. Instead of trying to pull himself free he swirls back around towards Tommy, hoping to unbalance him. He doesn’t, but the movement surprises Tommy enough that his grip loosens, and Jon can pull himself free and dodge down as he turns back towards the door. Tommy grabs him by the shoulders then, and when Jon reaches for the handle again Tommy reaches around and slams his arm down across Jon’s in one efficient strike. Jon gets an impulse to yell for help but realizes that that’s really not a good idea. Maybe they should have done this at home after all, where they could be as loud as they’d want…

Now Tommy has his arms around Jon, holding him against his own chest, Jon’s arms trapped, both of them breathing heavily. They’ve playfought many times before, tests of strength and technique, each measuring themselves against the other. This is like that, and it isn’t. Jon could just stand there for a while, but he knows Tommy will start moving again soon, so instead he gropes backwards with his leg, trying to hook it around one of Tommy’s, trying to trip him up. If he succeeds they’ll go down in a tumble together, and maybe they’ll finish this on the floor. Jon is far from opposed to that idea, but before he gets his foot around Tommy’s leg, Tommy lets him go completely and steps back, which makes Jon lose his balance. Tommy just has to add a light shove for Jon to fall forward, catching himself on his arms. So now he’s standing on all fours in front of Tommy.

“Ah, such a pretty sight,” Tommy says, a little out of breath.

Jon twirls around on the floor so he can get his eyes on Tommy, which means that he sees Tommy reaching for his – hair, maybe? – and manages to dodge him. Tommy still gets ahold of a fistful of Henley, and yanks Jon towards the bed. Jon resists less than he could, because he doesn’t, after all, want to escape out the door. Following along with Tommy’s motion, he ends up with his back against the side of the bed. Just as he begins to try to get up, Tommy dives down and gets a grip around his wrists. Jon gears up to kick at him and Tommy leans his weight down against him so he hardly can move at all. They catch their breath like that for a moment, Tommy clearly having the upper hand now. His tight V-neck has moved slightly askance in their shuffle, baring a collarbone inches from Jon’s mouth.

 _No biting_ , Jon remembers. _Dammit_.

\---

Some moments and movements later, Jon finds himself lying back on the bed, Tommy holding him down with a knee on his chest, leaning back to stay out of reach from Jon’s hands as he finally finishes unclasping his belt. He pulls it out through the hoops in his pants so fast that it _swiiissshes_ , and Jon shivers.

 _Oh, shit_.

“Jesus, what are you doing?” Jon says, remembering to play his role, but his heart is not in it, his voice coming out more excited than scared or outraged or whatever he’d been aiming for.

They’d talked about bondage as a possible element, as something that Jon likes, Tommy assuring him that he knows how to do it safely, but when there hadn’t been any ropes in the room, Jon had pushed the possibility out of his mind. Now he’s dizzy with it, eager to know what that leather, warmed by Tommy’s body, will feel like against his skin.

“I told you this will happen whether you like it or not,” Tommy says.

Jon barely registers that Tommy spoke, too focused on the way he’s circling the belt around his hands, the way he’s looking down on Jon, considering. Jon is used to cooperating when being tied up, to Emily nudging his leg for him to lift it or him asking her where she wants him to put his hands. He’s not gonna cooperate now, however much he’s _aching_ to have that belt around his wrists, and Tommy knows it. Jon waits for the right moment, then he bucks up, unbalancing Tommy enough to get a leg free. He twists his torso around, pushes up on his arms. He can feel Tommy trying to regain his balance behind him, and kicks out instinctively. Tommy dodges his foot and grabs his leg again, pressing it down.

“Hey now, don’t make me do something dangerous,” he hisses as he leans down on Jon again, pressing his front down into the bed.

Chilling words, even as Jon can hear the real warning underneath them: ‘take it down a notch or someone might end up hurt.’ He squirms under Tommy’s weight and Tommy grunts. The sound is neither sexy nor menacing; it’s just funny. For a moment Jon has to focus on suppressing a giggle. Tommy takes full advantage of this lapse in Jon’s attention to wrench his arms back and grip Jon’s wrists in one hand. Jon stops fighting then, gives Tommy a chance to tie him up safely.

\---

“There you are,” Tommy says when he judges Jon’s arms to be secured by the belt.

He moves away, off the bed, and Jon rolls over on his side to watch him warily.

“Not trying to get away anymore, are we?” Tommy asks. “Good that we’re finally on the same page about that. Now you should just do as I say and I’ll let you go home and try to repress this in whatever way you prefer.”

“You’re crazy,” Jon says.

Tommy puts a knee back on the bed to lean down over Jon and grip him by the collar of his already rather mangled Henley. He pushes Jon down on his back again, and gets his other knee on the bed to hold Jon’s leg down, before using his grip to yank Jon’s upper body up a few inches off the bed. Then he lets go with his left hand, raising it to hit Jon across the face again. The ‘no biting’ rule is really putting Jon at a disadvantage here, but apparently the scene has room for Tommy to make threats that he can’t make good on, and Jon can play at that too. He twists his head towards where Tommy’s holding him, as if he was trying to get his teeth on Tommy’s right arm.

“What the f-…?” Tommy yelps, dropping him.

Jon can’t help smirking at that, and with Tommy looking down at him he can tell the exact moment he realizes that Jon had been feinting.

“Why, you little…” he says, but his eyes are fond, and for a moment they’re both out of the play space, Jon’s smirk slipping into a genuine smile.

The moment lasts until Tommy shakes himself and leans back down, gripping Jon’s face in one hand.

“Now, you _can_ make this more difficult than it has to be,” he whispers, his face close enough that Jon can feel his breath on his own lips, “but we both know who has the advantage here. So what you _are_ gonna do, straight boy, is cooperate. You’ll get on your knees on the floor, and you’ll suck me off. And if you do reasonably well – I’m not expecting wonders from some random hetbro – I’ll even let you get off too.”

With Jon’s arms tied behind his back and butt stuff off the table, that is really the only way this could go, but somehow the idea that he’ll soon have Tommy’s cock in his mouth manages to take Jon by surprise. The whole thing suddenly becomes very, very real. So he decides to stall for time a little. And have fun with it while he does.

“Please, ma-… I mean, please, just let me go,” he says, hamming it up a little, “I’ve learned whatever lesson you wanted to teach me, I won’t…”

“Come touristing into gayness again?” Tommy supplies.

“Yeah, that, I won’t do that, please, you can’t… you can’t be serious about this, I don’t wanna… I can’t… please…”

Unlike Lovett, Jon can’t make himself cry on demand. Still, he makes his face as pathetic as he can as he looks up at Tommy. Tommy looks at him for a moment, but then seems to decide to ignore him. He steps off the bed and opens the fly to his jeans. He’s not wearing TommyJohns, Jon notes absently. His character probably wouldn’t. Then Tommy starts pushing down his jeans, and Jon looks away.

“Now come here,” Tommy says, half a minute later.

Jon doesn’t move.

“Hey, Jon, you okay, buddy?” Tommy asks, then.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I just need a minute, get back in character,” Jon says, the words coming a little rushed. “Maybe three minutes,” he amends.

“All right,” Tommy says, sounding a little dubious but trusting Jon to know his own limits enough not to push, in either direction.

Jon closes his eyes and lies back as comfortably as he can. He concentrates on the feel of the belt around his wrists, the smoothness of it, the slight dig of its edges, the way his arms are twisted back. In the silence of the hotel room he can hear Tommy’s breathing and he lets the slow rhythm of in and out ground him as he carefully starts to think about putting a dick in his mouth, putting Tommy’s dick in his mouth. Finds his curiosity, gets a little eager for it.

“Keep your eyes closed if you need to, straight boy,” Tommy says tentatively, what must be three minutes later, “but come over here and make yourself useful.”

Jon doesn’t need to keep his eyes closed; he’s over it now, and he wants to see what’s happening – unless Tommy doesn’t want him too, but then he’ll have to blindfold him. Jon’s not gonna make things easier for him. With a little struggle he rolls himself over to the edge of the bed and gets up off it. He takes the few steps towards Tommy, who, Jon notices, has pulled his pants up again. The fly is still open, though, and through it Jon can see Tommy’s cock straining against his underwear. Half unconsciously Jon runs his tongue over his lower lip in a quick lick. When he gets over to Tommy he makes a point of looking Tommy in the eyes, to convey that everything’s fine again. Tommy’s eyes move over his face for a second, then he inclines his head and Jon sinks to his knees, looks up at Tommy through his lashes. Still listening to Tommy’s breathing, he hears when it catches, and he has to look down to hide his smile. Soon, though, Tommy’s hand finds its way down Jon’s cheek and grips his chin to tilt his head up again.

Tommy’s dick is out now, thick and red and yet somehow almost translucent – that must come with Tommy’s general paleness, Jon figures. It curves a little to the right, which Jon finds oddly charming. It’s pretty damn big, too. Jon lets his mouth fall open and sways forward a little, momentarily forgetting that he’s supposed to act like he _doesn’t_ want this.

“Now be good for me,” Tommy says, then, the words dripping with sarcasm, and _nope_.

Those words in this context are way too much like what Jon usually likes, twisted into something ugly, and just. No.

“Nuh-uh,” Jon mumbles, racking his brain for their safe word.

Tommy must read something in his face already, though, because immediately there’s a crease between his eyebrows and even before Jon has time to remember he asks,

“Iowa?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t tell me to be good or that I’m doing well or anything like that,” Jon says.

Tommy doesn’t ask why, just nods a quick ‘got it’, chin dipping down once. Then he takes the opportunity to kneel down and check on Jon’s circulation.

“Sorry,” he says when they’re on the same eye level, his fingers moving deftly up and down Jon’s arms and over to his hands.

Jon wiggles his fingers for him.

“It’s fine,” he replies. “You didn’t know – _I_ didn’t know.”

They share a quick smile. Then Tommy presses a kiss to Jon’s right temple and gets up again, his smile turning back into a smirk.

“Now put that mouth to some use,” he says, and they’re back into it.

\---

“No, please, I don’t think I can, I won’t be any good like you said, let me go and you can find that pretty twink instead, someone who knows how to make this good for you, I don’t want to, you don’t really…” Jon blathers, but even as he speaks he knees forward a couple of inches to get into a better position.

Tommy takes the hint, cups a hand at the back of Jon’s head and shuts him up by shoving the head of his cock into his mouth. And, _oh_. So, that’s an interesting sensation. At first, Tommy’s dick in Jon’s mouth feels mostly like having something in his mouth. Then Jon tentatively swipes his tongue over the underside and wraps his lips around the shaft, and he notices how unmistakably _alive_ it feels in his mouth. Compared with giving a woman head it doesn’t have much of a taste, but it’s so much more _present_. And, Jon keeps coming back to, so very alive. He gives a light, light suck, feeling it out. Then Tommy starts moving a little, and Jon’s immediately struggling to keep up. There are so many things to keep in mind at the same time. With the way they’re positioned, the head of Tommy’s cock presses against the roof of Jon’s mouth as he pushes in, and that’s a whole new interesting sensation. Jon looses himself in it for a moment, and then he realizes that he’s about to start drooling. He sucks the saliva back into his mouth, startling a happy little ‘iiihp’ from Tommy. Turns out it’s pretty difficult to smirk with a cock in your mouth. Who knew?

It would be in character for Jon to let the blowjob just sort of _happen_ to him, but now that they’re actually… doing it, Jon wants to make this good for Tommy. This is one of his best friends in the world, who’s right now doing him what might be the biggest favor of his life, and Jon has his dick in his mouth. The least Jon can do is to do his best. So he starts experimenting. He tries swirling his tongue around the head on an out-stroke, and angles his head so Tommy can get in a little deeper on the in-stroke, pursing his lips and sucking a little, which earns him a tighter grip around the base of his skull. It’s surprisingly difficult to know how the things Jon does with his tongue and lips will translate into sensations for Tommy, though – when Jon has been on the other side of this he’s never put much thought into what exactly his partner might be doing that feels so good, which he curses himself for now. (Purely from a selfish perspective, however, this actually isn’t half bad. Jon has always liked giving head, liked putting things in his mouth, and this is like the perfect fix for his oral fixation. Unsurprising, really.)

Jon is just getting into it for real, almost forgetting about the scene, sucking and rolling his neck, when he makes an overeager and miscalculated move and feels his teeth drag, unmistakably _way_ too hard, along the length of Tommy’s cock. Oops. Jon winces, imagining what that must have felt like, just as Tommy groans – not a good sound – and gropes up from where he’s cupping the back of Jon’s head to instead grab at the hair on the top of his head, where it’s long enough for Tommy to get a real grip. Once he does, he yanks Jon off, and glares down at him. Jon swallows.

“Watch your teeth, straight boy,” Tommy growls, and then he adds, muttering, “I knew you would be useless at this.”

But he can’t – or doesn’t bother to – hide a glimmer of amused fondness in his eyes as he keeps looking down on Jon. Something about the way he tilts his head and glances to the side makes Jon wonder if he’s remembering a similar blunder of his own.

When Tommy pushes his dick back into Jon’s mouth again, Jon abruptly remembers something an old hookup of his did once, explaining that ‘some boys go crazy for it’ when he asked her about it afterwards. So Jon hollows his cheeks tighter around Tommy’s shaft and starts humming. He doesn’t have a certain song in mind when he begins but he ends up with something slow, bluesy. Tommy’s grip around his head tightens again.

“Oh, so you’ve got some tricks after all, straight boy,” he mumbles, and now the moniker suddenly sounds more like an endearment than an insult.

Jon chuckles, which is also difficult to do while sucking dick, and hums louder, feeling the vibrations reverberating through the hunk of aliveness in his mouth. Tommy starts moaning, then, and Jon gets lost in what he’s doing for real. He rolls his neck as he slides back down, stills for a moment as he comes back up to suck a little on the head of Tommy’s cock, pressing his tongue into the slit before swallowing Tommy down again, humming all the while. He’s not snapped out of his flow until Tommy starts moving faster, starts hitting the back of Jon’s throat for real, and things get a little uncomfortable. By now Jon’s dizzy with it, no leverage with his hands tied back and Tommy’s hand on his head doing little to steady him. But Jon can feel Tommy’s cock start to pulsate now, and figures he only has to endure this for a little while longer, which he’ll happily do.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Tommy starts chanting between gasps.

For all the world he’s completely lost in it, way too far gone to focus on staying in character – or maybe that’s just Jon, fully intent by now on making Tommy come. When Jon glances up at him, he sees that his head has lolled back on his neck, and Jon prepares to learn what it’s like to swallow come. But then, just as his dick begins to pulsate more intensely, Tommy’s head snaps up and he yanks at Jon’s hair again, pulling out and holding Jon’s head still as he comes all over his face.

_Holy Mary, mother of God._

Jon instinctively shuts his eyes, feeling the warm liquid splash against his cheeks, his nose. When he opens his eyes again, Tommy’s looking down at him with something akin to awe in his eyes. He’s definitely out of character now, but Jon can’t really fault him for it; he’s just had an orgasm, after all. Jon usually has a hard time just remaining standing after a blowjob, and he supposes he makes a rather pretty picture, flushed and on his knees, swaying a little and still panting as come runs down his cheek. If you like that kind of thing. Personally Jon has never seen the charm in cumshots – and he has certainly never imagined that he’d ever be the recipient of one! – but the way that this is _clearly_ doing it for Tommy… yeah, it’s pretty hot. When Jon bites his lip, unsure whether they’re still in the scene or not, Tommy stretches out his hand and runs his thumb down Jon’s cheek. The touch is slow and soft, romantic even, and Jon leans into it, still unsure about what’s going on, but when Tommy gets down to Jon’s chin he shakes himself a little, eyes hardening again.

“I’m clean, but this way you don’t have to worry about it,” he says, flippant through his panting. “You should be thankful.”

 _What a horrific thing to say_ , Jon thinks. He hasn’t spared his own dick much thought the last few minutes, but now he can feel himself getting harder again. Then Tommy _grips_ Jon’s chin between his thumb and index finger and starts raising his arm. Jon scrambles to rise along with it, and he doesn’t even have time to find his balance before Tommy pushes him back towards the bed again. With his arms still tied behind his back Jon can do nothing but let himself fall, and he hears a snerk of laughter as he goes down bouncing – but when he looks back at Tommy, his face is press-conference-blank.

\---

“Your turn,” Tommy says, climbing up on the bed beside Jon.

He grabs the hem of Jon’s Henley and starts pushing it up, pausing when it’s wrapped over Jon’s face to quickly twist Jon’s nipples, then pushing it over Jon’s head and down his arms, until it comes to rest in a tangle at Jon’s wrists, impossible to get off entirely due to the belt. Tommy then drags his hand back up Jon’s arms again, discreetly checking his circulation again. _Smooth._

“You’re very quiet, straight boy,” he says. “Did blowing me blow your mind?”

Jon’s just beginning to voice a reply when Tommy starts palming Jon’s hard dick though his jeans, and Jon falls silent with a gasp.

“Yeah, I knew you liked it, you fucking weirdo,” Tommy says meanly, opening Jon’s fly, pulling out his dick.

They share a quick glance, then, and Jon’s sure that at right that moment, they both have the phrase ‘smooth deployment’ ringing through their minds, but they manage not to crack up. And then Tommy leans away to grab the lube bottle from the nightstand. He squeezes out a fair amount into his left hand and doesn’t bother to warm up it up, so when he finally – _finally_ – gets his hand on Jon’s dick, the first sensation is just _cold_. Jon sucks in a breath, his whole body shuddering, and he has no time to collect himself before Tommy picks up a punishing rhythm. Soon Jon’s squirming and gasping, babbling nonsense that he can’t make sense of himself. Then he accidentally catches Tommy’s eyes and sees something of the same softness that was there before, and he’s pulled out of the moment a little. But Tommy looks away, picking up the pace even more, and then it only takes a few more hard strokes for Jon to come too, all over Tommy’s hand. Tommy carelessly wipes it off on Jon’s bare stomach, and fuck that’s hot. If Jon hadn’t already orgasmed he would have done it right then. Which would be something of a paradox. Anyway. Jon feels too good to bother about paradoxes right now. He shuts his eyes and just lies there, panting, with half-dried come on his face and wet come on his stomach. He has no idea how much time has passed when he feels Tommy shift on the bed and turns towards him, opening his eyes.

Tommy catches his gaze and smiles a real Tommy smile.

“End of scene,” he says softly, startling a laugh out of Jon.

Tommy starts laughing too – giggling, really – as he leans down to kiss Jon’s forehead (carefully avoiding the drying come on his face).

“I’ll be right back,” he says, and Jon feels the mattress bounce gently as Tommy gets up and disappears into the bathroom.

Jon’s drifting, listening to Tommy’s somewhat maudlin giggles slowly dying out, replaced by the sounds of him washing his hands and rummaging around in a bag, as something to ground him, tie him to reality. His arms are starting to ache just the tiniest bit, and he focuses on that sensation too, feeling like he might get lost in his own fuzzy mind if he doesn’t. This is new, and a bit weird. He feels like he’s been put into a different state of consciousness, a bit like being high but a lot not like being high, where the scenario of the role play lies like a semi-transparent overlay over the world, tainting it with an alien color, the two realities threatening to collapse into each other if Jon doesn’t manage to pull them apart. He needs some kind of… resolution.

When Tommy comes out of the bathroom again, with a damp towel in his hands but without his shirt, Jon asks,

“If this had been for real, what would have happened now?”

Tommy hums thoughtfully as he sits down on the bed again and strokes a big, warm hand down Jon’s side, before carefully tilting him forwards so he can massage Jon’s arms and get at the restraints behind his back.

“Well,” he begins, deep and slow and… careful? “He would have picked up the lube and the condoms and put his shoes back on as you still lay on the bed, catching your breath.”

Jon doesn’t remark on the third person pronouns, just hums an active listening-encouragement.

“Then he’d get his belt back,” Tommy says, as he gets the belt – and the Henley – off Jon’s wrists for real.

Jon rolls over to his back, stretching out his arms in front of him.

“Then he’d leave, and you would get up, even though you’d much rather stay down and get your bearings for a little longer, because you’d be worried that he might come back.”

Tommy waves the washcloth in front of Jon's face, and Jon closes his eyes so Tommy can clean him up. Tommy then moves down to wipe at Jon’s stomach, before lying down beside Jon.

“You’d stumble into the bathroom to try to clean yourself up,” he goes on, mumbling quietly in Jon’s ear, now: a weird contrast to the words he’s speaking.

Tommy runs his fingers through Jon’s hair. Jon shifts closer.

“You’d realize that your hair’s a mess and your shirt a bit worse for wear, but you’d be in too much of a hurry to get out to do anything about it. And then you’d walk out, smoothing your hair down, worrying that people could read on your face what just happened as you fumbled through your phone to get a Lyft to take you home. And the driver would ask if anything was wrong and you’d snap at him to shut up. And then you’d get home and try to fall asleep, but you probably wouldn’t.”

Jon shudders, and the two realities break apart completely as he turns towards Tommy and buries his face in his shoulder, surprised but not embarrassed when the tears start to fall.

“Hey,” Tommy says, big and warm and safe, pulling Jon closer, running a hand up and down his back, pressing a kiss into his messy hair. “Hey. I got you.”

\---

After a while – Jon has lost track of time again – Jon’s light sobs turn to hiccups, which turns to an embarrassingly joyous laughter that bubbles up from deep in his chest, completely unstoppable. Apparently it’s his turn to giggle now. Tommy’s never been good at avoiding laughter contagion, though, and soon the two of them are shaking with laughter, pressed together in an overly soft hotel bed, clutching at each other.

“So that was… fucking intense,” Jon says, once he can speak again.

“Intense fucking,” Tommy mumbles back half nonsensically, still giggling.

“That too,” Jon concedes, huffing out a last, exhausted laugh.

He actually hadn’t really realized just how intense it had been while it was still going on, caught up in the sex of it, but this release, this crying and laughter and closeness has left him lightheaded the same way he sometimes is after a particularly strenuous pass at the gym, but _more_. He tilts his head back to look Tommy in the eye again, and finds Tommy looking at him with an almost painfully tender look in his eyes. Even though Jon just cried he feels a lump growing in his throat. He swallows it down.

“So, Favreau, was that as good for you as it was for me?” Tommy jokes, taking the edge off of whatever just passed between them.

“Asshole.”

“No, but really,” Tommy insists, earnestness returning to his voice.

“Yeah. Yeah. You nailed it,” Jon concedes.

“Nailed _you_ ,” Tommy says, sounding very pleased with himself for the pun.

They lie in silence for a little while, Tommy rubbing circles on Jon’s back.

“Sorry about the teeth, by the way,” Jon says then, suddenly remembering.

“Meh. It happens,” Tommy replies. Then, a few beats later he adds, in a whisper,

“You actually were really good, you know.”

Jon feels himself blush. He’d punch Tommy on the arm if they weren’t pressed flush against each other like two sardines.

“Thanks, dude,” he says instead, and feels the tickles of Tommy chuckling into his hair.

Something warm has started glowing in the pit of Jon’s stomach in response to Tommy’s words. It’s nice.

“This is nice,” Jon says, wanting to share with the class.

Tommy chuckles again at that, and Jon realizes that he’s still pretty out of it. That’s fine. Everything is _juuuuuust_ fine.

**Author's Note:**

> I made a [podsa tumblr](https://abriefshoutouttosomeminutiae.tumblr.com). It's currently empty.
> 
> If you, while reading this, found yourself wondering what Tommy might be thinking and feeling as all this goes down, you should definitely check out SelfRescuingPrincess wonderful remix of this story linked below. :D

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tear Down My Reason](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15761856) by [SelfRescuingPrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelfRescuingPrincess/pseuds/SelfRescuingPrincess)




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